


Aletheia

by Terminallydepraved



Series: Works for Others [51]
Category: Bloodborne (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Tragedy, Blood and Injury, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-29 03:56:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19822030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Terminallydepraved/pseuds/Terminallydepraved
Summary: Watching the hunter retreat into the distance inspired several feelings, deep and dark and resonant in the depths of Valtr’s chest.Pride was chief among the lot, followed swiftly by nostalgia. The League was dead and gone, her numbers dissolved and mission all but forgotten— but it would live on yet, he told himself, watching the silhouette disappear among the brambles and withering foliage. It would live on in its new Master, and he…He would find another way to give honor to his order.





	Aletheia

**Author's Note:**

> got another valtr/yamamura fic here for artdork707 over on tumblr! enjoy some angst and check out the awesome art artdork did for this over on tumblr https://artdork707.tumblr.com/post/186320137232/boy-that-inspiration-hits-it-hits-like-a-damn!

Watching the hunter retreat into the distance inspired several feelings, deep and dark and resonant in the depths of Valtr’s chest.

Pride was chief among the lot, followed swiftly by nostalgia. The League was dead and gone, her numbers dissolved and mission all but forgotten— but it would live on yet, he told himself, watching the silhouette disappear among the brambles and withering foliage. It would live on in its new Master, and he…

He would find another way to give honor to his order. 

Honor. What an odd thing to care about now. Valtr had thought long and hard about honor, questioning its worth in the wake of all they’d— _ he’d— _ become. Parts of him clung to the past, to the glory of the olden days when the League’s numbers were strong, the cause just, and the night’s long and filled with victorious battles followed by drinking, cajoling, camaraderie. Another part of him, the one that had long ago bowed to reality and all its woeful truths, knew that longing for those days wouldn’t bring him anything beyond pain. Valtr looked down at his hand, vision unobscured for the first time in… years, probably. He’d had his fill of pain at this point, and he’d long since grown sick of the taste. 

For the first time in a long time he was without purpose. Valtr looked around his small, ramshackle hut with both eyes, vision unobscured by the mantle of his Order. An emptiness gnawed at his insides now that he was alone, and it bit at his heart with the hungering intensity of any beast he’d encountered. The League was no more, but that didn’t mean he had to be alone, did it? He’d been duty bound to remain at his station until a successor arose to take his place. But now? Now he could do what he pleased. He could go where he pleased, pursue  _ who  _ he pleased.

Sudden warmth overtook the pain. Yes. There was that. There was always that. Valtr moved towards the door and stared out at the wild depths of forest surrounding his little clearing. Thinking of the past was difficult these days. Memories lurked in foggy recesses, inaccessible at times and crystal clear in others. Time held little meaning anymore, but one face—one name—had remained. The League was dead and gone, dissipated like mist in the sunlight that never quite reached the depths of this forest. Only, Valtr knew that one small facet still remained. 

Yamamura. How had he almost forgotten that name? He leaned against the frame of the door and forced himself to step outside, breathing in the chilly, damp air in bracing lungfuls. His long hair stuck to his suddenly clammy cheeks. The last he recalled, Yamamura had been suffering, seeing vermin where none remained. He’d… gone feral. Something had happened, something horrible. Who had told him? He hadn’t witnessed it, that much he was certain of. 

Valtr pushed himself into the thick of the forest, sword drawn in preparation of the beasts he knew lay ahead. Something had obscured his memories, but with freedom came answers, or at least the potential for them. Yamamura was alive. Valtr couldn’t begin to make sense of how he knew; it was a certainty deep in the core of his being. He didn’t question it; instead, he just pressed on,.

Certainty guided him through the forest and kept his pace quick when caution threatened to slow him down. The heights of the Healing Church loomed overhead like a sickly blight that scratched the sky with its piercing turrets. The sky itself seemed infected on high, the heavens stained an unhealthy purple redolent of fresh bruises. Valtr stared up at it for a moment, struck by the overwhelming presence of it all. He felt removed from it, even though he knew well enough he was here, that he wasn’t dreaming. Lucidness was a challenge suddenly. Valtr blinked rapidly, fighting with some force that threatened to shroud him in a familiar weight he’d only just shook off. The world felt like a nightmare, his consciousness just a shade caught up in the folds of its scenery. Something was at work here, something fighting with him to abandon his current course, to fade into… something else. Valtr furrowed his brow and forced himself to keep moving. Perhaps it had always been this way. Perhaps he only noticed it now that he had nothing left to distract him from it. 

He’d never been here like this before. He wasn’t sure why he knew to come here specifically, or why he felt this place held the answers he was looking for. It was an almost niggling little feeling, a persistent itch that worried at the part of his brain that resided more often in lofty thought than anything concrete, and it told him—no, it  _ promised  _ him—that it was here. 

All he was looking for… was here.  __

The place was in shambles through and through, filled with ghastly figures and pathetic remnants of the Healing Church’s research. Valtr’s sword sang and cut, rending through those who staggered towards him with aggression in their swollen, bloated eyes. He cut his way down stairway after stairway, fighting his way through a maze he didn’t know how to traverse. The temperature grew colder, the light less prevalent. He stood panting in the makings of a jail and knew, somehow, that Yamamura was somewhere within it. 

He moved as if compelled, bypassing cell after cell. He didn’t recognize many of the occupants, but some he did. They screeched and rattled the bars of their cages, others not even stirring from their fevered muttering or weak sobbing. Valtr’s stomach turned. He swallowed harshly to keep himself in check. There was a force guiding him; until he found where it wanted him to go, he would take no detours. 

Guards patrolling the halls were easily dealt with. There weren’t many, and those that were here were slow moving, silent, vacant in the way so many things around here were. Valtr dispatched them or avoided them. The cell he wanted was further down the line. He cleared the hall and cocked his head as he approached. There was an odd sound coming from the one he wanted. A wet sort of sound. Even. Rhythmic. 

_ Thud. Thud. Thud. _

“Yamamura?”

The thudding paused, then picked back up again. At least, he imagined there was a pause, some sign of recognition. Valtr moved with renewed purpose and approached the cell. He peered through the bars of the door, hands cold, heart louder than the meaty thumps that seemed to fall in time to the pounding blood in his ears. He licked his lips. He tried again.

“Yamamura?” he called, a shiver rolling through him as he watched the figure near the wall ram its head into the stone again, again, again. “It’s Valtr. Can you hear me?”

_ Thud. Thud. Thud.  _

Valtr’s heart sank. Was it not him? But no, no, it had to be. He  _ felt  _ that it was, and despite the ragged state of the figure within, the silhouette was unmistakable, the shape of those threadbare clothes as familiar to him as the ones he wore now. Valtr sucked in a lungful of stingingly cold air, feeling it land in his throat like needles of ice. He looked down at the door, rattling the metal frame to test its strength. It held firm. 

“Yamamura?” he called again, hoping for an answer but resigned to the thought that he was in essence speaking to the air. “I’m going to get in. Have you the key? Do you know where it is?” 

_ Thud. Thud. Thud.  _

He squared his jaw and sank to his knees before the lock. He didn’t have time to search the entire prison for the one key that might open this door. Valtr reached for his pouch and poured the contents on the floor. Out came blood vials, spare weapon components, the emblem of the League. Valtr barely spared the latter a second glance before knocking it all aside, searching for the— There. His hand closed around the thin picks. 

“It’s been quite some time since I last attempted this,” he said, hoping his voice might serve some purpose beyond reassuring himself that there was hope to be found in his actions. He brought the picks to the old, rusted lock. “Try not to judge me over much for how long this takes, Yamamura.” He pressed his tongue to the side of his cheek, wiggling the pick, applying tension to the wrench. The lock was rusty, ancient. A huff escaped him. Annoyance. “Definitely don’t judge me,” he whispered, smiling as the wrench turned in tiny, tiny increments. He was long out of practice. Just another testament to his age. To both of their ages. 

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, knees numb and aching from the hard, stone floor beneath him. His fingers went next, making the tools shake in his hands. At one point he lost control of the pick, ruining his work as half of the stubborn tumblers leapt back into place. Valtr swore once, twice, a few more times after that, but eventually the wrench turned completely, the final tumbler clicking as it moved into its proper place. He dropped the pick and snapped the lock off, the door opening inwards. 

Valtr let out a burst of laughter, a victorious whoop that sounded much the same as his cries of victory he’d once given after felling a capable foe. Perhaps it was his imagination that the steady tattoo of thumping stuttered at the sound of his excitement.  _ Thud. Thud— thud.  _

“Yamamura?” he croaked, wobbling to his feet. His legs were numb, deadened by the cold and ache. He clung to the frame of the cell door and carried himself forward. “You’re free now. Let us leave this place, once and for all.”

But Yamamura didn’t turn towards him, handsome face quirking into a muted tease of a smile. His dark eyes didn’t meet Valtr’s, didn’t glint with that smoldering fire Valtr had always found so endlessly enthralling. The figure across the cell didn’t do much of anything in the wake of his arrival, his rescue. It just kept thudding.  _ Thud. Thud. Thud. _

It was then that Valtr noticed, be it from the new angle or new light, that there was something trickling down the wall that Yamamura faced. Something dark. Something wet. 

Valtr’s heart ran a little faster, ruining the measured meter his lover hammered out. Fear gripped him like the cold. He took a step forward, and then another. He slowly crossed the room, nostrils flaring at the familiar, sickening tang of copper and salt, freshly spilled. 

It ran down the wall and splattered the old stone floor. Valtr knew the scent of blood, the sight. The  _ thud, thud, thud,  _ had a meaty, damp note to it, one he hadn’t noticed before, or had steadfastly made himself ignore. 

“Yamamura…” he whispered, reaching out a hand to wrap around the man’s wrist where it was pressed against the wall. 

Valtr flinched the second he touched him. Yamamura’s skin was cold, clammy. It felt… nothing at all like it had that night, or any of the nights after it. Valtr’s heart choked him, lodged in his throat like a ball of iron that threatened to beat right through the skin and out onto the grimy, blood spattered floor. He held tight to the man’s hand and tugged, hard, to pull Yamamura away from the wall. 

It was bloody there too, he noticed, running down from the point of impact until it thinned out into the small, thin rivulets he’d observed on the floor. Some of it was dry, rusted brown and flaking in thick chunks. Most though was fresh, bright, the brightest thing in the cell. 

But then he lifted his gaze and looked at his lover. He looked him in the eye, and immediately felt bile claw its way up his throat. 

The face that stared back at him did not look like Yamamura. 

The Yamamura he remembered had been sleek, gloomy, with a fire lying beneath the cool mien of his dignity that had entranced as much as it had repelled. For the other members of the League, Yamamura had been exotic and strange, an outlier in a group of outliers and unsettling in his unknowability. Valtr had seen the warmth in him though, the intrigue, but now…

Now, he saw little at all that reminded him of the man he’d once known.

Yamamura’s eyes were wide, gaping, vacant. The whites were shot with blood, and they stared forward, locked in a rictus of fear and horror that saw straight through Valtr when he tried to look for some semblance of recognition in them. Yamamura’s lips moved soundlessly, speaking words Valtr couldn’t understand, moving fast, faster, like a prayer he didn’t have the strength to say. His skin was pallid and sickly, his goatee matted with gore and filth, dull, lifeless.

Worst of all, Valtr realized, was the mess that had been made of his head. The meaty thumps made sense now. He’d beaten his head against the wall for… for ages now, longer than Valtr wanted to think about. His forehead was a mess of blood, split skin, and raw, ragged wounds. Valtr had seen worse— he tried to remind himself that he had, but for all the death and rot and vermin he’d seen, this hurt the worst. This turned his stomach, sent abject misery through him in a cocktail of horror that threatened to take his knees out from under him. Yamamura made no indication that he felt the pain such an injury would carry with it. He simply angled himself towards the wall and stumbled back towards it, stopped short from carrying on his incessant head banging by the grip Valtr had on his wrist.

Valtr held tight to his wrist. So tight that he felt the bones grind together a little, but still Yamamura made no indication that he felt it at all. 

In the back of his mind, something locked into place like a key fitting into a rusted lock. He remembered.

He remembered that he knew this. He’d always known this.

It took several moments for Valtr to find his voice. Yamamura kept tugging, kept pulling, kept trying to go back to the wall. To that bloody smear he’d spent so long making. He was like a magnet set on meeting its other half, compelled by an unseen force. Valtr wondered… No, he knew. He knew the force at work here. If he could shrug it off, maybe Yamamura could too. 

“Please,” he rasped weakly, tightening his grip to guide Yamamura towards the tiny, rusted cot resting cock-eyed at the center of the cell. He tried to meet Yamamura’s unblinking eyes. All he had to offer with himself though. “Please stop hurting yourself.” 

Like all the times before, it didn’t seem like his words penetrated whatever nightmare Yamamura saw with those wide, vacant eyes of his. He had to be coaxed into sitting, and Valtr had to sit beside him, one arm hooked around his waist to keep him from standing right back up again to resume his fevered self-flagellation. He rocked forward and back, forward and back, in time to a metronome only he could hear. Valtr bit down viciously on his lip. 

He… didn’t know what to do. 

His chest tightened. His heart ached as if it’d been pierced by a blade. He didn’t know if there was anything  _ to  _ do. What were his options? To take Yamamura from this place? To get him help? What help was there? Where could they go? Valtr’s breath came faster as the indecision sank in, as the weight of it all came crashing down on his shoulders. He remembered that day, the day Yamamura left for the Healing Church. He’d been wide-eyed, panicked, seeing things that weren’t there and just— 

_ “I see them everywhere,”  _ he’d said so softly that first time, holding onto Valtr as if he alone would keep the horrors at bay. 

“But you never saw them in me,” Valtr echoed, watching Yamamura rock himself forward and back, rhythmic sways that only lacked the meaty, wet  _ thud  _ of his head against the wall to punctuate each move he made. Valtr began to shake. “I left you alone, left you to rebuild our numbers, and you saw them. More and more of them until…”

Until he saw too many to comprehend, probably. Until they overwhelmed him and took from him the one thing so commonly lost among their ilk. 

Valtr lifted a hand to cup Yamamura’s cheek. He cupped his face and Yamamura didn’t even register the touch. A trickle of blood rolled down the man’s face, from his mangled forehead to his chin. Valtr tried to wipe it away; he only succeeded in smearing it, adding to the bloodstained mess that had taken over his lover’s face. 

“Say something. Anything,” he whispered, knowing it would be in vain. He got no response. At least, not one that meant there was hope, that there was a chance of turning back the hands of time and making his better again. Valtr collapsed into Yamamura’s chest. No arms lifted to wrap around him. Instead of a familiar, comforting scent, he only smelled the fetid reek of fear-sweat.

And blood. Copious amounts of blood. 

His lungs tightened. He clung to Yamamura’s ragged clothes. He forced himself to pull away, and then to stand up, pacing the small cell helpless as he rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. His fingers twitched, curling around it, then loosening. The cold sting of the metal bit into his palm. He couldn’t bring himself to wrap his hand around it. 

He looked at Yamamura. His hand fell away completely. He didn’t bother giving voice to the half-formed though that had nearly been. He wouldn’t do it. He couldn’t. 

“I’m failing you again,” Valtr said weakly, choking on a bitter laugh. He ran his hands through his hair and yanked harshly, the pain not nearly grounding enough. “I can’t even help you now.” Not in any way that mattered. 

Not in the one way that might bring him some peace, once and for all. 

Bile churned in the pit of Valtr’s stomach. His breath came hard and heavy, icy in his lungs. Helplessness didn’t suit him. Disgusting. It was so disgusting— 

Valtr’s thoughts screeched to a halt, the peal of a bell cutting through them like a knife through gristle and fat. It rang and rang, so  _ loud  _ in the sepulchral cell. Valtr paused, confused. But then, understanding filled him.  _ Purpose  _ filled him. 

A summons. A call to arms.

He wanted to laugh. He wanted to cry. That hunter, the new Master… “Time to hunt already?” he whispered, loud in the wake of his panic. The pull was harsh, insistent. He had to respond. He’d sworn to do as much. 

Maybe it was better this way. Maybe he just… 

Maybe he was meant to simply leave it like this. 

Valtr tried not to spare Yamamura another look, but failed. His eyes went to him now as they always had; inexplicably, eternally, and wantingly. He watched Yamamura shuffle, boots dragging along the floor. Without Valtr’s arm to keep him down, he’d stood back up, unseeing eyes locked on that gruesome wall. His intent was absolute. Valtr tried to find his voice, to call out to him to stop, to sit, to just… stop hurting himself. 

“Ya… Yamamura—”

But Yamamura had reached the wall. 

_ Thud. Thud. Thud.  _

Valtr sucked in a shaky, ragged breath. He turned away and put the sight to his back. He wished he could blot out the sound of it as easily as the sight, but—

_ Thud.  _

_ Thud.  _

There was nothing left for him anymore. Not here. Not anywhere.

He drew his blade and let the call carry him away. 

Once this battle was won, he’d disappear like all the others had too. 

_ Thud.  _

An old hunter like him wasn’t long for this world anyway. 

**Author's Note:**

> whelp there we go! hope yall enjoyed it, and if you did consider leaving a comment to let me know! check me out on twitter @tdcloud_writes for more of me and my writing! until next time!


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